by Phil Rickman
‘I was thinking I could leave it for a while. Until after Easter. See if it made any more sense. Now… if I don’t do something now.’
Lol squeezed her hand, as if to show he still could.
‘Start by telling James.’
‘About the possible re-emergence of an ancient Roman pagan cult and the possible involvement of a retired SAS trooper in the theft of a bull?’
‘We both know what you can tell him.’
‘Lol, I hardly like even to mention it out loud.’
‘You mean bull?’ Lol said. ‘ Mansel Bull?’
Merrily put on her sunglasses and started up the car.
‘Thanks for saying it first.’
‘Watch much TV, Carly?’
Carly looked up, ebony hair still slanted defiantly across one eye.
Bliss said, ‘Bet you’ve seen all them women’s-prison reality shows. Could be worse inside, couldn’t it? Get to wear your own clothes, have yer hair done, decorate the cell.’
‘Think you’re scaring me?’ Carly said.
‘Of course they’re a bit misleading, them shows. They only talk to the mouthy prisoners, the ones who’re a bit of a laugh. And speak English. No point in following one of the many smouldering, resentful East European ladies on Her Maj’s guest list.’
‘I fear you’re sailing perilously close to racist shores, Inspector,’ Mr Ryan Nye said.
Everyone’s favourite duty solicitor, all glossy black hair and geek specs. Interesting how the smarmy twat was always first out of bed for something newsworthy.
Bliss shook his head.
‘You know me better than that, Mr Nye. I’m just thinking how aggrieved certain migrant ladies in the slammer might feel at having to share a landing with someone who set up two of their innocent compatriots to get murdered.’
‘Innocent, bollocks!’
Carly halfway out of her chair. Bliss smiled.
‘Had it coming, did they? Look, Carly, I’m just giving yer a chance to make things easier all round. We’ll have the DNA matches up soon, and that’ll be that. Though I think it’s only fair to tell you that poor little Joss has already seen the light.’
Ryan Nye looking at him, trying to work out if he was lying. Bliss just looked sad.
‘It was that ugly scratch just below the left shoulder blade that did it. No wonder she was wearing a high-necked sweater. You got any scratches anywhere, Carly? We can get yer a plaster and a dab of Germolene. Should I summon a doctor and a nice police lady to hold your clothes?’
‘I never…’ Carly wrapped her arms around her chest. ‘You listening? You won’t find no DNA ’cause I never touched either of them women.’
‘Could be you never did, Carly, but that doesn’t make a lorra difference nowadays. Whether or not you struck any of the fatal blows, you still helped engineer a double murder. The courts draw few distinctions any more. You were involved, kid.’
Bliss paused, the flat of a forefinger angled thoughtfully under his bottom lip.
‘Now, it could be you didn’t realize it would get that far. If you were able to convince us of that, it might help you no end. Though pairsonally, Carly, I’d find it hard to credit, ’cause your attitude so far has been unremittingly cocky with norra hint of remorse. The attitude, in fact, of someone who feels the world can only be a better place without the likes of Maria and Ileana Marinescu. Someone almost proud of her-’
‘No!’
‘ Yes.’
Carly said nothing. Bliss was also silent for a while. Coming on like he was thinking something out. Giving it nearly half a minute before he said, ‘How well do you know Victoria Buckland, Carly?’
Now was that a little shudder?
‘See, we know Victoria of old, and she’s gorra hell of a talent for self-preservation. The very last person to put both hands up and say, No, no, it’s all down to me, officer, those kids had nothing to do with the actual violence, I’m a grown woman, me, and there’s no way I’d let young girls take the rap for smashing anybody’s-’
‘Inspector…’
‘Mr Nye?’
‘Perhaps we could save some time. May I have a word in private with my client?’
‘Absolutely, Mr Nye,’ Bliss said. ‘I’ll be just outside, if required.’
60
Cult
The tin-roofed lean-to that James Bull-Davies called his study overlooked the stable yard. They could see Alison out there forking sodden straw into a barrow. James’s face was stretched, his washed-out eyes mottled with uncertainty.
‘Normal way of things, this makes very little sense, even you must see that.’
‘Normal way of things,’ Merrily said.
She wouldn’t sit down.
‘Never your favourite word, is it, vicar? Normal.’
Out in the yard, Alison tossed the fork into the barrow. She looked tired.
‘I should be doing that,’ James said. ‘Should’ve been done hours ago, but we had to go into town this morning, see a man about an overdraft. Or a woman, as it turned out.’
‘Things are bad?’
‘Recession, still. People don’t want to burden themselves with extra horses, feed bills, vet bills…’
‘It’ll lift.’
‘My lifetime, you think?’ James frowned, watched Alison wheeling the barrow away. ‘Should’ve made William Lockley clear out his own shit.’
‘May not be his to clear,’ Merrily said. ‘Not all of it.’
She felt the ground becoming marshy. She’d left Lol on the square, in search of Danny and Gomer. Feeling obliged to come here alone.
‘And I know my limitations, James.’
He sat down in the hard chair behind an old oak desk stained with cup marks. Drumming his fingers on a worn blotter.
‘SAS are the finest in the world at what they do. Train, train and train again. And, the pressures being commensurate with the rewards of the job, there’s little doubt that some chaps get drawn into odd byways. But the idea of a cult…’
‘In fairness, much of it seems to have developed after they left the Regiment.’
James grimaced, drew in his chin.
‘This Roman army business… you’re suggesting that’s actually in some way become central to the exercises devised by Jones and Mostyn for their clientele?’
‘Think what people pay to go on Buddhist retreats and stay at ashrams. Add to that a powerful physical regime. And the almost mystical glow that surrounds the SAS.’
‘And this includes the ritual slaughter of animals?’
‘I… believe so. For some participants. The ones considered suitable. And discreet. And able to meet the fees.’
‘An elite?’
‘Belonging to an elite has always been very sexy.’
‘And not really a swindle, I’d guess.’
‘Only in that nobody should have to pay for spiritual knowledge. No, I… I think it almost certainly works. I think it alters them psychologically and in quite dramatic ways. I think there might even…’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Doesn’t matter. But you have to remember we’re looking at something specifically shaped to the military two thousand years ago, when life was cheaper that we can imagine. Which, today, might have some questionable side effects. On some people.’
‘Dangerous, you think.’
‘Very. I think.’
James said. ‘What about Savitch?’
‘That’s all circumstantial. The link is Hardkit, which supplies the equipment and know-how for Savitch’s hunting and paint-balling weekends.’
‘Was at his press launch today. Everything in place, all boxes ticked. Green energy, but also farmer-friendly.’ James craned forward onto his elbows. ‘No right at all to resent that man. My family, what’s left of it, we can’t do anything for the community any more – barely hold ourselves together. But Savitch is… Used to hear him sneering at anything that didn’t fit his ludicrous concept of what country life should be about. Now he smiles to
lerantly, witters on wistfully about tradition. Not a sham, as such, he just…’
‘You can’t stand him, can you?’
‘Is it that obvious?’ James looked pale with defeat. ‘But he’s such an insubstantial man that it’s hard to see him getting down and dirty with the likes of Jones and Mostyn.’
‘I don’t think he does. I think that killing, for Savitch, is something done from a safe distance with a twelve-bore and nice gloves. I think he simply passes some clients on to Jones, probably via Mostyn, for a cut. And even then, I suppose, it’s like SAS selection – many won’t go all the way.’
‘And the ones who don’t slink quietly away? Don’t like it, Merrily. Army turns out men. Danger of this creating…?’
‘Monsters.’
‘All right. What’s the bottom line?’
‘That’s where it gets even more speculative.’
‘Then speculate.’
‘I’d much rather go and lie down in a dark room, but…’ Merrily pulled out her cigarettes without the usual request for clearance ‘… it’s just about conceivable, James, that, somewhere along the line, this takes in the killing of your cousin Mansel.’
She lit up, as the legs of James’s wooden chair screeched on the stained flags.
William Lockley was back on the phone within half an hour of James’s call. James just listened, his chin retracted, eyes half-closed.
‘Have to remember Mrs Watkins is not actually in your employ, William,’ he said after a while, then spent some more time listening and then barked, ‘All right, will do,’ and hung up. ‘William conveys his respects, with a polite request for you to pop into Hereford.’
‘Me? I’d’ve thought…’ Merrily had her cigarettes out again. She shut the pack and pushed it back into her bag. ‘Where in Hereford?’
‘Seems Colin Jones is coming into police headquarters in about an hour. Seems that after the events of last night, the police thought it might be a good idea to visit his premises. Jones said he wouldn’t be there today but, as he’d be in Hereford, he’d be happy to call in at Gaol Street. He says he won’t be pressing charges against the man who broke into his premises.’
‘Good to know,’ Merrily said, guarded.
‘Lockley thinks it would be a good idea to make the most of Jones’s presence. In view of what you told me, they’d like you to be there when they talk to him. As a consultant.’
‘They?’
‘William himself and the Senior Investigating Officer. Howe.’
‘Annie Howe asked for me? I don’t think so, James.’ She watched Alison leaning the barrow up against the house wall, then taking off her leather gloves. ‘I expect I’m the one who’ll look stupid if none of this stands up to scrutiny.’
‘That bother you?’
‘If it bothered me, I’d be in a different job.’
She called in at the vicarage to put out dried food for Ethel and check the answering machine. For once, no messages. On the way out, she noticed a brown Jiffy bag propped up against the wall and took it back inside.
The bag contained a large-format, lavishly illustrated hard-back book.
RISKING ALL
The SAS Experience
Another kill-and-tell Regiment memoir. By Trooper Z. There was a sheet of Black Swan headed notepaper, marking a page, Barry’s scrawl across it: More from the Public Sector.
There were just pictures on the marked pages, in colour. One with a pencilled cross against it showed a bunch of smiling guys in T-shirts holding up white mugs. The caption said:
Teatime in Colombia for (L to R) Greg, Syd, Jocko and Nasal.
Various guns were laid out on the parched grass in front of them. Syd was only vaguely recognisable; his teddy bear’s eyes were covered, like all their eyes, with a black rectangle. All dead. All dead now.
Except for Byron, of whom there was no sign.
61
Passed Away
Carly said, ‘Victoria… I reckon she thought Joss didn’t like her. Well, nobody likes her that much, to be honest. And like most of them she don’t care, but Joss was her little sister, you know?’
Little sister. Lemon hair and a frozen scowl. But you forgot; underneath, they were both little girls, citrus-haired Joss and Carly, with her black nails. Little girls who got the life beaten out of two women they didn’t know.
Carly said, ‘Victoria’s, like, I’ll find out who they are and we’ll deal with them?’
Bliss nodded in an understanding kind of way, while wondering how he could make her cry.
‘She explain exactly what she planned to do to them?’
‘Just deal with them. We never thought. It’s not like she’s, you know, gone that far before, is it?’
‘As far as we know, Carly. As far as we know. Tell me what you saw.’
‘Didn’t see nothing. I wasn’t looking. I mean, it was cool at first, but then you thought, like, maybe it’s not…’
‘Not that cool, eh?’ Bliss said. ‘Killing people.’
Carly turned away. Bliss eyed her with dispassion.
‘Let’s go back. I’m talking about after Joss phoned Victoria to say the sisters had left the Monk’s Head and were heading up towards the Cathedral. What happened then? What did Victoria do?’
‘She’s, like, in the middle of the street? The narrow street with the cobbles?’
‘Church Street.’
Amazing how kids could be born and grow up in this city and didn’t know the names of its streets.
‘And she, like, she’s got her arms folded – like this? And she’s not moving. Like, if anybody tries to come past, they’re gonner get… you know? And when these two seen her just standing there-’
‘The Marinescu sisters?’
‘Yeah. They, like cut off into this other street?’
‘East Street.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And did you follow them?’
‘We started to, but Vic walks over then, and she’s with this guy?’
‘Guy you knew?’
‘No.’
‘Joss know him?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘You know who he is now?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll be asking you to describe him in a minute, and it better not be like the description you gave of the non-existent fellers who followed the Marinescus out. But let’s not break the flow.’
‘Uh?’
‘Was there anybody else in East Street?’
‘No.’
‘What happens next?’
‘Vic… she puts on these gloves.’
‘Kind of gloves? Black suede? Woollen mittens?’
‘Rubber gloves. Long. That, like, unroll up your arm?’
‘And the guy? He put on gloves too?’
‘I din’t see, to be honest.’
Bliss glanced at Mr Ryan Nye, who was looking down into his hands. Not yet five o’clock, but the light seemed to be fading early today, as if something had sent the year into reverse. Up at the end of the table, Karen was watching the tape machine as if it was a lie detector.
Bliss said, ‘Go on, Carly.’
‘Vic catches up with the… you know, the women, and she’s talking to them? We couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then, it’s like one of them… she just trips? Like, stumbles over? And the bloke’s come out of, like, nowhere, and he catches her.’
‘What was Victoria doing?’
‘Laughing. Just starts laughing real loud, and going like oops, kind of thing. Like the woman was a bit pissed and she’d slipped. And then… they all, like, vanished. That’s all we seen.’
‘Vanished where?’
‘Into this… where people park?’
‘And what did you and Joss do then?’
Carly looked at Mr Nye. Mr Nye didn’t even look up.
‘I think, Inspector,’ he said, ‘that you can understand how intimidating my client must have found Victoria Buckland. Even though she had no reason to believe that Ms Buckland�
�s intentions extended beyond, shall we say, putting the fear of God into the Marinescu sisters.’
‘Apart from the gloves,’ Bliss said.
Mr Nye said nothing.
‘Carly,’ Bliss said, ‘didn’t you or Joss feel tempted to have a little peep at what – or who – was going down on the car park?’
‘No.’
‘Really?’
‘I don’t wanner talk about this no more.’
‘Where were you, exactly?’
‘Just round the side of the building?’
‘And you saw nothing. But you surely heard-’
‘They weren’t even from here!’ Now Carly was jerking up and back like somebody had set light to her clothes. ‘They were bad bitches! They robbed Joss’s gran! The bitches robbed her handbag with all her personal stuff in it and she was so upset she died!’
‘Is that why you took their handbags, Carly?’
‘I never took nothing!’
‘With the pictures of their parents, and the little dog?’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘Um, Carly,’ Mr Nye said. ‘You remember what we talked about.’
‘I wish I was dead. I wish I was fucking dead!’
Bliss shook his head, settling back in his chair, watching stupid little Carly Horne come slowly to pieces for the tape.
It was one of those country garages that didn’t sell petrol and didn’t have a shop, looked like a semi-derelict chapel of rest. A bloke in brown overalls seemed to recognize Cornel’s Porsche, came shambling round to his wound-down window.
‘Wannit again, chief?’
‘Same one as before?’
The bloke nodded. Cornel got out his wallet, turned to Jane.
‘This is where we leave the car.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it just is.’
Cornel drove the Porsche round to the back of the garage where an old grey van was parked. When he got out, the garage guy handed him a ring of keys with a wooden tag on the end. Cornel gave him a small fold of notes, then leaned into the Porsche.
‘For you, girlie, the luxury transport is history.’
